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From: chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: When csh can't access .
Message-ID: <4647@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 3-Dec-86 21:08:27 EST
Article-I.D.: mimsy.4647
Posted: Wed Dec  3 21:08:27 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 4-Dec-86 00:11:06 EST
References: <624@cullvax.UUCP>
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 17

In article <624@cullvax.UUCP> drw@cullvax.UUCP (Dale Worley) writes:
>It seems that when csh (under Ultrix 1.2, which is a BSD 4.2 variant)
>starts up, if it cannot get any access to the current directory, it
>exits silently.

Yes.  This is a standard C-shell bug.  The C shell believes it must
know the name of the current directory (for, e.g., $cwd), but does
not try hard enough to get it.  It might invoke `pwd' if its own
code fails; or it might just chdir($HOME) or chdir(/) and complain;
but it just exits.

The routine that does this is called getwd(), and is either in the C
shell source or in the C library, or both.  (I cannot be more specific
because our source machine is down with broken CDC 9771 drives.)
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7690)
UUCP:	seismo!mimsy!chris	ARPA/CSNet:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu